Annual Business Award Winners

Phil Meekin

There are many ways to help save a struggling business – trimming overheads, diversifying, cutting out weak elements, focusing on profitable areas. It may be necessary to restructure. Frequently it’s a combination all these factors that does the trick.

Some qualities are invariably evident amongst those who win awards – particularly those who achieve success time and time again. It’s not just a matter of being naturally gifted – unable to put a foot wrong – making no or little effort to attain such accolades. No, what runs through such achievers – like the letters in a stick of Blackpool rock – are tenacity and doggedness. That single-mindedness and resolve to bounce back when you are knocked down.

You don’t have to look too far back in history to identify some hugely successful entrepreneurs who bounced back. Motor man Henry Ford went bust twice – before creating the Model-T. Henry Heinz’s first company failed – before he got into tomato ketchup. Walt Disney was also financially disastrous before dreaming up Mickey Mouse.

I do not mention these men because they went bust – but because they turned adversity into success.

If you are running a business and like many are going through hard times, with crushing financial pressures and feeling isolated by worry, it may be some small consolation to know that you are not alone. These troubles are commonplace in business, and can be overcome. There are few entrepreneurs who haven’t at some time despaired of ever turning things around.

There are many ways to help save a struggling business – trimming overheads, diversifying, cutting out weak elements, focusing on profitable areas. It may be necessary to restructure. Frequently it’s a combination all these factors that does the trick.

So, although you may feel that your company is beyond salvation (just like Henry Ford did, and the rest) there are often ways of rescuing your business. But it is essential that you take advice without delay. At Wilson Field we have experienced, friendly, insolvency experts to help you deal with creditors, the landlord, the bank and HM Revenue & Customs, and to talk you through the options available. Our initial advice is available free of charge.

You may wish to ponder on the words of Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States. He left office on the eve of the Great Depression. Here’s what he once said.

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent.”